The Rossica Prize Shortlist Announcement at LBF
Record number of submissions
New works from 21st century Russian writers
Wednesday 22 April, 9.30 am, PEN Literary Café
THE ONLY PRIZE FOR TRANSLATION OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE INTO ENGLISH IN THE WORLD!
The shortlist
The shortlist for the Rossica Translation Prize and Rossica Young Translators Prize will be announced at 10am at the PEN Literary Café, just beside the Russian stand (Y505). Welcome coffee will be served from 9.30am.
The Rossica Prize was launched in 2005 by Academia Rossica and the Yeltsin Foundation. The award, totalling £5,000, is split between the translator and the publisher.
The entries
We are proud to announce that this year we have received a record number of entries to the Rossica Translation Prize! While many of the 57 submissions are new renderings of works by classical authors, we were delighted to receive 19 translations of works originally published in Russian in the 21st century. This is testament to the continuing commitment of publishers to making the new works of Russian writers known to English-speaking readers. Brilliant contemporary authors such as Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, Alexander Terekhov, Maria Galina and Andrey Rubanov are finding their way to a new audience.
This year we launched the Rossica Young Translators Prize to promote contemporary Russian writing, and encourage literary translation amongst young people. Budding translators aged 24 and under are invited to translate an extract from a new Russian novel, by Dmitry Bykov, Olga Slavnikova or Vladimir Makanin. The Rossica Young Translators Prize is judged in tandem with the main Rossica prize, and the shortlist will be announced at the PEN Literary Café at LBF.
The Committee
The Rossica Prize Committee brings together great minds from the publishing world. Christopher Maclehose is a prolific publisher who was awarded the LBF Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing in 2006. Boyd Tonkin is a Literary Editor, first for the New Statesman, and for the last 13 years for the Independent. Amanda Hopkinson is the Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation and also chairs the English PEN's Writers in Translation Committee. Susanna Nicklin has spent her life promoting literature, first as Director of the English PEN, and more recently as Director of Literature at the British Council. Alastair Niven is the president of English PEN, has written extensively on D.H. Lawrence, and has presided on the jury for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
The Judges
We are honoured to have three highly esteemed academics on the panel of judges. Martin Dewhirst is a lecturer on Russian language and literature, translator and specialist on Soviet censorship and archives. Professor Anthony Briggs, Senior Research Fellow at Bristol University, has written, translated or edited more than twenty books on Russian and English literature. Robert Porter is a lecturer on Russian language and literature, literary translator and author of monographs on Russian literature.
Join us at 9.30am in the PEN Literary Café for the announcement of the Rossica Prize and Rossica Young Translator Prize shortlists. We look forward to seeing you!
To submit books for the Rossica Prize 2010 or for more information, please visit contact Ruth Atkinson
Rossica Young Translators Prize
The deadline for submissions to the Rossica Young Translators Prize has passed and we are delighted to announce that the competition has, in its first year, enjoyed an overwhelming response. Academia Rossica has received 28 submissions from aspiring translators in Britain, France, Ireland and America. Many entrants were studying Russian at universities (which ranged from Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard to St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin) but others were at school and not in education.
An announcement of the shortlist for the Rossica Young Translators Prize 2009 will take place on Wednesday 22nd April at 9:30 as a part of the London Book Fair. In attendance will be the distinguished judges (Martin Dewhirst, Anthony Briggs and Robert Porter) as well as other established translators, journalists and the writers – Vladimir Makanin, Olga Slavnikova and Dmitry Bykov – who were translated by the entrants. For more details please contact Howard Amos.